Kategorie: Bitcoin News

Bitcoin news about the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain and its crypto ecosystem.

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Bitcoin shorts surge on BitMEX, implications for Metacade price?

  • Metacade price rose to an all-time high after its presale and listing on major cryptocurrency exchanges.
  • Today’s Bitcoin price prediction highlights the implications for Metacade price as BTC is heavily shorted.
  • The week is key to investor sentiment with markets awaiting US inflation data.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded around $27,575 on Wednesday morning even as equities and other risk assets traded lower ahead of key US inflation data. While US Futures and European stocks edged lower, Bitcoin lumbered within a range that sees it down nearly 4% this past week.

On-chain data shows BTC is being heavily shorted as investor caution adds to the negative sentiment that has prevailed since the dip from highs of $30,000. What does the outlook for Bitcoin price mean for Metacade (MCADE)?

Bitcoin price prediction: crowd sentiment is negative but what’s the outlook?

The price of Bitcoin rose to $30,000 last Friday, with bulls looking to retest recent year-to-date highs. However, with sentiment flipping negative amid broader market anxiety and new FUD saw the benchmark cryptocurrency’s value dump to a weekly low under $28,000.

At current prices, Bitcoin is under fresh pressure with on-chain data showing bets on further declines have surged on crypto exchange and derivatives trading platform BitMEX. 

For the BTC price outlook, analytics firm Santiment points to Bitcoin’s funding rate, which is at its most negative ratio in nearly two months. While prices are likely to fall to support in the $25,000 region should a meltdown follow the CPI data and investor reaction to potential Fed rate hike path, the current crowd perspective has historically given way to new upside momentum.

Santiment says of BTC price prediction:

“Bitcoin’s funding rate on BitMEX is seeing its most negative ratio since the heavy bets against prices in mid-March, just before prices soared. Generally, price rise probabilities increase when the crowd overwhelmingly assumes prices will be dropping.”

This short term outlook for Bitcoin price will likely align with the anticipated new bull cycle ahead of the next halving. Altcoins are likely to see some action before then, and projects with greater ecosystem pull like Metacade could be stand out performers.

Metacade’s big GameFi ecosystem bet

Metacade is a play-to-earn (P2E) project looking to offer the gaming ecosystem an all-in-one GameFi and Web3 hub. As highlighted in the project’s whitepaper, the goal is to offer an arcade-style gaming platform where gamers, developers, and crypto enthusiasts connect, play and earn.

One aspect of Metacade’s unique approach to the gaming ecosystem is its rewards system. Unlike other traditional P2E platforms, MCADE offers complete utility as it allows for multiple earn revenues for token holders and investors via a strategy that will bring new game titles.

The team is also focused on incorporating leading industry gaming studios and developers, opening up the platform to growth into the ultimate GameFi environment.

The platform is set to go live soon and has a native token that will power transactions and interactions for users. The token, MCADE, concluded its presale successfully in April before going live on major exchanges Uniswap, BitMart and MEXC Global.

Is MCADE worth investing in in 2023?

Metacade’s MCADE token sold out swiftly during its presale, with investors scooping the allocated supply portion amid greater interest in what the project offers. Investors also saw the token’s value explode after the crypto market showed confidence in Metacade’s potential with listings on the highlighted exchange platforms.

Accomplishing roadmap milestones such as introducing Metagrants to support ecosystem development, and improving governance via a DAO, could help catapult Metacade into position as one of the biggest crypto gaming platforms.

The upcoming launch of the mainnet coupled with the diverse opportunities MCADE offers could be the catalysts that elevate Metacade’s price in 2023 and beyond.

Metacade price prediction

Market experts are long-term bullish on Metacade price, particularly on being a potential game-changer in the GameFi sector.

Metacade has a fixed supply of 2 billion MCADE tokens, with 1.4 billion tokens (70% of supply) available to investors during the presale. Demand for the token and removal from circulation via a burning mechanism should see buy pressure push the price higher long term as more people enter the Metacade ecosystem.

If we look at Metacade price today, we see its trading largely in tandem with the major altcoins. The forecast for MCADE price in the short term looks at the broader implications of Bitcoin ripping higher again to uplift the entire sector.

MCADE price hit an all-time high of $0.045 on 3 May 2023. The token’s current price is $0.024, down nearly 9% in the past 24 hours. MCADE/USD is also in negative territory on the weekly timeframe, although it trades above its Uniswap listing price level of $0.022 per token in April.

If the altcoin market dumps further, primary support for MCADE would be at around the mentioned buffer of $0.022. There’s a possibility of $0.020 and the all-time low of $0.014 could come into play incase of a deeper rot.

Should bulls regain control, a retest of the peak and targets of $0.1 in 2023 will likely be achievable. Meanwhile, the medium term price target could be $1 in 2024.

The post Bitcoin shorts surge on BitMEX, implications for Metacade price? appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Nearly a million addresses hold more than 1 bitcoin, half the US median salary


Key Takeaways

  • The distribution of Bitcoin can be analysed through the transparent nature of the blockchain
  • Nearly 1 million addresses now hold more than 1 Bitcoin, equivalent to $27,500, or half the US median annual salary
  • As Bitcoin collapsed in price last year, falling 77% from peak to trough, the 1 Bitcoin hurdle became far easier to achieve

The funny thing about the blockchain is that, while it is impossible to know the identities of individuals or institutions behind a Bitcoin address, the distribution of the asset is readily available on the Internet for all to see. 

This means that we can study the distribution of coins across the network. For example, the largest holder of Bitcoin is the anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, at approximately 1 million coins, or over 5% of the entire supply. 

In digging deeper, however, we can assess how many people own certain thresholds of Bitcoin. Notably, one target is about to be hit: there will soon be 1 million addresses holding 1 Bitcoin or greater. 

The current number, as of 8th May 2023, is at 997,919 addresses containing 1 Bitcoin or greater, equivalent to $27,500. With the median US salary at $56,400 per year, 1 Bitcoin thus equates to roughly half of that – and a lot more in most other countries. 

To be clear, one Bitcoin address is not equal to one person, so this doesn’t necessarily mean 1 million people own 1 Bitcoin. Certain individuals are in control of multiple Bitcoin addresses, while some addresses may belong to institutions or groups of people. But it is the best approximation we have, as like we said above, it is impossible to know the identity behind these addresses. We just have an alphanumeric code on the blockchain, which is the beauty of it. 

The one million addresses represent just over 2% of the total number of non-zero addresses on the Bitcoin network. 

“For a long time, one Bitcoin was just a small amount of money. It was only ten years ago that it first crossed the $100 mark. Then in 2017, it passed $10,000 for the first time. It is remarkable to be sitting here now with nearly one million addresses containing at least one Bitcoin, despite how expensive it has become”, said Max Coupland, director of CoinJournal. 

How does the distribution change as Bitcoin’s price moves?

Obviously, Bitcoin’s price is incredibly volatile. Back in November 2021, the price of Bitcoin was nearly $69,000, well clear of the median wage in the US. Since then, the asset’s price has collapsed. Despite rising 66% thus far this year, it remains 60% off its peak. 

Therefore, this has made owning certain amounts of Bitcoin a lot more achievable. In plotting the pattern of Bitcoin addresses holding more than 1 Bitcoin against the price of Bitcoin, there is a clear shift upward in trajectory from the spring of 2022, when the price of Bitcoin began to crater downwards.  This followed a period of levelling off during COVID as the price of Bitcoin went parabolic, surging from $7,000 at the start of 2020 to nearly 10X that by late 2021.

When comparing the growth in addresses holding 1 Bitcoin to total (non-zero) addresses on the network in the next chart, one can see that non-zero addresses have grown at a much more steady pace, with the pickup in early 2022 of addresses holding 1 Bitcoin or more not matched. This makes intuitive sense, as the world is on a dollar standard, and less dollars required to buy 1 Bitcoin means more people can hit that hurdle. 

Despite the hurdle of owning more than 1 Bitcoin becoming easier to achieve, it is still a lot of money. If Bitcoin ever retakes the levels it did during its pandemic boom, the trajectory of people reaching this elusive “whole coiner” status will again slow, as it simply will not be possible. Of course, Bitcoin’s price can always go the opposite way, in which case it won’t be quite such a difficult – or desirable – target. 

If you use our data, then we would appreciate a link back to https://coinjournal.net. Crediting our work with a link helps us to keep providing you with data analysis research.

The post Nearly a million addresses hold more than 1 bitcoin, half the US median salary appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Here’s why the Bitcoin SV (BSV) price just went vertical

Bitcoin SV price surged to the highest level since March 1 as investors moved to the coin, which is an alternative to BTC. BSV jumped to a high of $42.10, which was about 48% above the lowest level this year. The coin’s market cap has jumped to more than $748 million.

Is this a pump-and-dump scheme?

There was no news that pushed Bitcoin SV higher on Tuesday. A likely reason why the BSV is rising is because some investors believe that it is a better alternative to Bitcoin. As we wrote in this article on Monday, Bitcoin’s fees jumped on Monday because of elevated congestion in the network. 

As a result, Binance, the biggest crypto exchange in the world, suspended Bitcoin withdrawals several times on Monday. Bitcoin SV, which has less volume than the main Bitcoin, is therefore seen as a better alternative. For one, its transactions take less than 2 seconds to complete while the average transaction fee is about $0.0001. Also, the network can handle over 50,000 transactions per second (tps).

However, it is worth noting that the BSV price rally could be a pump-and-dump scheme. This is a situation where insiders or large holders buys an asset, promote it, and then exits at a profit, leaving buyers holding the bag. This situation is common among low-volume coins like Bitcoin SV.

Bitcoin SV price prediction

The daily chart shows that the BSV price has been in a strong bearish trend. It has crashed by over 90% from the highest point on record. The coin has also moved below all moving averages. It moved slightly above the crucial resistance point at $34, the lowest point on November 22 last year.

Therefore, I believe that this Bitcoin SV rally does not have legs. As such, there is a likelihood that it will resume the downward trend to where it was before it jumped. This could see it retreat to the next key support at $30.

The post Here’s why the Bitcoin SV (BSV) price just went vertical appeared first on CoinJournal.

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BRC-20 tokens have major flaws and issues, Mintlayer CEO says

  • Bitcoin BRC-20 tokens have skyrocketed over the past few days, with their combined market value rising to over $923 million as of 8 May, 2023.
  • Mintlayer CEO Enrico Rubboli has highlighted some of the flaws and issues plaguing the BRC-20 token standard.
  • Apart from not aligning with the “axioms of the core Bitcoin community,” flaws and issues mean users are likely to be rug pulled.

Crypto news this week indeed has the skyrocketing transactions of BRC-20 tokens as one of the reasons the Bitcoin network experienced massive congestion amid rising fees. 

As CoinJournal highlighted on Monday morning, the crypto market was down as Binance halted BTC withdrawals amid the network congestion. Some of the trending BRC-20 tokens include ordi, pepe, meme, piza and domo. 

Enrico Rubboli, the CEO of Bitcoin sidechain Mintlayer, says that while BRC-20 tokens continue to create a frenzy, there are flaws and other issues that plague the tokens and offshoot decentralised applications that try to connect with smart contracts.

What are BRC-20 tokens?

BRC-20, or “Bitcoin Request for Comment,” is a token standard for Ordinals. The tokens allow for the issuance and transfer of fungible tokens on Bitcoin and hit the market soon after the mainnet launch of the Ordinals Protocol.

With BRC-20 tokens, one can etch digital art references into small Bitcoin transactions. The tokens are a creation of a pseudonymous crypto developer known as Domo.

According to market data for the token category, the combined value of all 11,705 BRC-20 tokens was $923 million as of Monday, 8 May 2023.

BRC-20 tokens plagued by speed and transaction costs issues

Among the insights Rubboli shared with CoinJournal on Monday is that while people pour BTC into minting BRC-20 tokens, there’s a need to realise that the technology behind these assets is “heavily flawed.” He also notes that BRC-20 tokens aren’t “in line with the axioms of the core Bitcoin community.”

Rubboli said that some of the issues currently plaguing the tokens and offshoot dApps within the ecosystem include speed, transaction costs and security.

On the issue of speed, he explains that transactions have to wait for Bitcoin block confirmation before settlement, which when combined with network congestion, has resulted in users waiting hours for transactions to clear.

Mintlayer CEO says BRC-20 tokens are potential rug pulls

According to Rubboli, the use of token bridges and wrapped BTC could expose users to exploits, with DeFi bridges seeing more than $1.4 billion lost to hackers that targeted crypto bridges in 2022. Rubboli believes the entire concept for BRC-20 was designed to confuse and mislead potential investors, with the creators leeching off the popular ERC-20 token standard.

Saying this could be an opportunity for scams, he added:

“The entire ecosystem was set up to be confusing and misleading. BRC-20 was chosen not because it was the 20th proposed standard, but to leech off the popularity of Ethereum’s ERC-20 token. The developers of the standard and the tools are not affiliated with Bitcoin, they are anonymous, and their software has not been thoroughly tested in this application.”

Besides, the hundreds of BRC-20 tokens might not just be totally worthless, but also minted specifically to rug pull later investors. BRC-20 token standard creator Domo has previously warned of the shortcomings of the software, including minting balances to intermediary wallets.

Regulatory issues also arise, with the minting of BRC-20 tokens likely to lead to regulatory concerns around commingling of user-generated tokens with BTC.

“If users mint unregulated securities, it could expose the Bitcoin blockchain to further regulatory scrutiny, which in turn exposes every BRC-20 to regulation due to 1 bad actor. A layer 2 solution fixes this problem as tokens are not commingled with Bitcoin,” he opined.

A layer 2 solution is a protocol that runs on top of a layer 1 blockchain, for instance Bitcoin or Ethereum. The key features that these protocols bring to the L1 include improved scalability and privacy among others. 

In blockchain, common layer 2 solutions include state channels, sidechains, and zero knowledge roll-ups.

The post BRC-20 tokens have major flaws and issues, Mintlayer CEO says appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Trillion dollar coin could be good news for Bitcoin, Cardano, Solana

  • The US government could be forced to print a $1 trillion coin soon.

  • Democrats and Republicans are yet to reach an agreement on a debt ceiling.

  • Analysts expect that the two sides will ultimately reach an agreement.

The US government is at a crossroads as divisions in Congress put the country at an elevated risk of a default. In a recent statement, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary warned that the American government could default in June if Democrats and Republicans fail to reach a deal. This is one of the top reasons why gold price has now soared to an all-time high.

The trillion-dollar coin

It is still unclear whether the US will default on its obligations if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. I believe that the situation will not get to that point because of its impact to the American economy. 

Analysts believe that a default will lead to higher unemployment and possibly the collapse of the economy as we know it. 

Therefore, the two sides will likely reach an agreement in the coming days. Signs of potential compromises will happen when Biden will meet Kevin McCarthy on Monday.

There are several options if the two sides fail to raise the debt limit. A likely solution will be to print a trillion dollar coin. The concept of that coin was mooted in 2011 when the US faced another debt ceiling issue. 

It would allow the Mint to come up with one platinum coin valued at $1 trillion. These funds would then be distributed to the Federal Reserve, which would then deposit it to the National Treasury. By doing that, the Treasury would then elimiate part of the national debt and postpone the need for raising the debt ceiling. A professor at Willamette University said:

“At this point, if any of the other solutions, the so-called more serious solutions would work, then they would’ve been used by now. But they keep not actually being strong enough. The coin’s the only one that’s strong enough.”

Bullish for Bitcoin, Solana, Cardano

Such a move would be positive for Bitcoin, which is seen as a digital version of gold. Unlike fiat currencies, Bitcoin cannot be printed because its supply of 21 million coins cannot be adjusted. If Bitcoin rises, we could now see altcoins like Solana, Cardano, and Tron rise because of the close correlation that exists.

The reality is that the American government is at risk of major changes going forward. For one, the total public debt has been in a strong upward trend in the past few years. It has jumped from just $320 million in 1970 to over $31.4 trillion today. 

And the situation will continue worsening because of the large budget deficits. By 2030, analysts expect that debt will rise to over $44 billion. The CBO believes that the budget deficit will hit 5.9% of GDP by 2040.

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